Hundreds of campaigners yesterday took to the streets in Taipei to demand government action to ensure clean air and to raise awareness about the threat of global warming.
The demonstrators convened in front of the Environmental Protection Administration in Taipei, where environmental activists, academics and event participants gave speeches. Some participants said they came from Yunlin and Kaohsiung.
Former Academia Sinica president Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲) said the international community is not doing enough to meet the Paris Agreement goal reached during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) this month to cap global warming at 2°C and drive the figure down to 1.5°C if possible.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Lee said that carbon reduction goals proposed at the Paris meeting would lead to a global temperature rise of 2.7°C 30 to 50 years from now, and he urged Taiwanese to cut their annual carbon emissions per capita of 11 tonnes.
Lee said that if the international community is to achieve its goal of capping the global temperature increase at 1.5°C, people must achieve zero carbon emissions by 2050, meaning the amount of carbon dioxide produced should not exceed that which can be reabsorbed.
National Taiwan University Institute of Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene professor Chan Chang-chuan (詹長權) urged the government to shut down coal-fired power plants and not to “terrorize” people by saying that doing so would cause an energy shortage.
Photo: CNA
Chan said scientific studies have shown that the nation would have enough energy without coal-fired power plants.
He said that Taiwanese consume more than 10,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per capita each year, while Germans and Japanese use between 7,000 and 8,000kWh per capita, indicating Taiwanese could adopt a more energy-efficient lifestyle.
The crowd later moved to the Presidential Office Building, with some participants holding up elaborate props and playing music.
Photo Credit
The three vice presidential candidates also discussed their parties’ commitment to cutting carbon emissions.
People First Party presidential candidate James Soong’s (宋楚瑜) running mate, Republican Party Chairperson Hsu Hsin-ying (徐欣瑩), touted her experience helping people fight companies creating pollution during her time as Hsinchu County councilor and pledged to push legislation to work toward yesterday’s appeals if her party is able to form a caucus after the Jan. 16 elections.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice presidential candidate Jennifer Wang (王如玄) said that environmental issues cannot be neglected during the pursuit of economic development and that the if she and KMT presidential candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) were elected, Chu would set up a task force to deal with environmental issues.
Wang said the KMT would lobby for the cancelation of the preferential electricity prices the government offers corporations.
Democratic Progressive Party vice presidential candidate Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁), formerly an Academia Sinica vice president, touted his credibility to tackle environmental problems, noting his experience advocating against the construction of Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co’s (國光石化) naphtha cracker and his collaborations with prominent academics, such as Lee and National Chung Hsing University environmental engineering professor Tsuang Ben-jei (莊秉潔), on studies concerning carbon reduction and epidemiology studies concerning health hazards associated with PM2.5 — airborne pollutants measuring less than 2.5 micrometers.
Association of Yunlin Art, Culture and Ecology member Lin Fu-yuan (林富源) said that Chen needed to answer how he would tackle pollution caused by the Formosa Petrochemical Corp naphtha cracker complex in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮), whose environmental impact assessment was passed when the DPP was in office.
Unable to give an immediate response, Chen said he would take Lin’s opinions to the DPP for an internal review.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS